The Aurora Borealis

How can we describe, how can an artist paint, the aurora borealis? We of temperate climates are not strangers to the phenomena; we know something of the arcs and radiating streaks of various-colored light which frequently adorn our northern skies; and we are occasionally permitted to witness exhibitions in which the whole heavens shine with their marvelous glow. Yet travelers from the far North say that we can have no conception of the wonderful splendor of the phenomena as witnessed within the Polar Circle, and that nothing but the actual sight can convey an adequate idea of it.The aurora borealis was also well known to the ancients...

... There is undeniable fascination about a theory which includes within its sweep the time-honored problems of astronomy connected with comets tails and the reason why they point away from the sun; the solar prominences and the corona; the source of the light by which the nebulæ shine; the origin and structure of meteor-swarms; and the aurora borealis; besides solving incidentally half a dozen minor outstanding mysteries of the heavens.